Russia accuses Latvia of ‘blatant censorship’ after Sputnik news site is shut down

A new skirmish in the European Union’s “information war” with Russia broke out Tuesday when Latvia shut down a local version of Sputnik, the Kremlin-backed news agency.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned the move as “blatant censorship.”

Sputnik said Wednesday it had resumed providing news for Latvian audiences using a .com Internet domain name, which Latvia doesn’t control, in place of the suspended .lv address.

Latvia, with a sizeable minority of Russian speakers, is worried that the Kremlin wants to expand its influence in the Baltics. Its foreign ministry complained that the Sputnik site’s coverage of Ukraine was biased.

The site, which launched last month, could be in violation of EU sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea two years ago, the ministry said.

Sputnik, part of the state-funded news agency Rossiya Segodnya, was set up in 2014 to provide an “alternative” take on world news for non-Russian audiences. Its Internet and radio news services operate in 28 languages. European critics have said it is nothing more than a tool in the Kremlin’s information war against the West.